Creating SEO-friendly content is one of the best ways to drive organic traffic to your site and capture the attention of your target audience. Considering 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, creating SEO content matters if you want a budget-friendly way to drive traffic to your site long-term.

However, just because it’s important doesn’t mean it’s easy. It requires know-how, and more importantly, time to create. 

As businesses strive to create more content to increase their search rankings, many are turning to AI-assisted content generation. By leveraging the power of AI, businesses can create high-quality, engaging content quickly and easily. 

In this guide, we'll outline how you can use AI to help you create SEO-friendly content. We'll also provide tips for ensuring that your content creation strategy is effective in boosting your search rankings. 

What is SEO content?

SEO content is content created to rank on search engines like Google as a way to win more search traffic. SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and content means anything shared digitally. 

To create an SEO content strategy that gets results, you need to:

• Research keywords users are looking for
• Add those keywords to the content you create
• Spend time creating a library of content that’s interlinked

We’ll get into the specifics of “how” a bit later in this guide. To start, it’s important to know what the different types of content are. 

Types of SEO content

Depending on your strategy, SEO content can take a few different forms. In theory, just about anything you create online can be search optimized, hence becoming “SEO content.” However, here are some of the most popular content types that help you rank in SERPs when you’re thinking about creating an SEO content strategy:

Blog posts: Probably one of the most popular pieces of content you can create to rank in search engines is a blog post. Now, a blog post can take many forms. But a traditional long-form blog post that’s informative, written for humans, and optimized for search with some keyword research is a powerful way to drive organic traffic to your site. 

This will increase further when you’ve created a library of high-quality blog posts that are optimized for search terms people are actually looking for. 

Landing pages: Depending on how they’re written, landing pages can often rank on the first page of SERPs. Though it might not be as common as with a traditional blog post, it does happen. Landing pages are standalone web pages that are often used to capture email addresses as part of a greater digital marketing strategy. Sometimes landing pages can take the form of product or sales pages. 

Interactive tools: In the world of SEO, high-quality content doesn’t just come in the form of writing. Interactive tools are a brilliant way to have your target audience find you through a search query. Once you nail the search intent, it’s possible to use SEO to rank interactive applications. NerdWallet’s Interest Rate Calculator or Zillow’s Rent Affordability Calculator are examples of this in action. 

Glossaries: Does your niche use a lot of insider language and terms? Creating a glossary that helps define these terms for beginners is a great way to try ranking in SERPs and score the coveted featured snippet. The more comprehensive your glossary, the better.  

In-depth guides: In depth-guides are simply blog posts but longer. They’re designed to cover every part of a subject, often step-by-step, so it becomes a go-to resource for anyone searching for that type of content. In-depth guides are also great ways to get backlinks, which are a key part of ranking for competitive keywords. 

Listicles: Valuable information-packed lists are another way to rank for targeted keywords. 

Videos: Did you know you can rank videos in search engines? Make a quick Google search on certain topics and some of the first suggestions you’ll see are YouTube videos (which Google owns). Creating and optimizing video content is yet another effective way to rank great content in a format other than blog posts. 

How to develop an SEO content strategy

Now for the hands-on part: How do you develop a content strategy that’ll get you results? The first thing to note is that SEO, as they often say, is a long-term investment.

What you do now might not pay off for another 6-12 months (or more). However, if done well and consistently. The payoffs can be massive. 

Define your goal

Much like any other project, creating SEO content starts with a goal. What’s your content “north star?” Are you creating content to:

• Grow your site traffic 
• Grow your email list
• Drive sales and conversions

Identify your target audience

Identifying your target audience can be both fun and a challenge. Who your content is created for will determine the type of content you create as well as the format you should create it in. For example, if your target audience lives on YouTube, you’re better off creating video content that reaches them where they’re at. 

Poll your audience, ask for input, identify search queries, look for related keywords to help you identify who your ideal audience is. From there, you can start diving into SEO research to round out each piece of content you’ll create. 

Conduct SEO research

Jasper’s free SEO content course walks you through the specifics of what it takes to conduct thorough SEO research. You want to vet specific keywords and what their ranking potential is. As you research, consider additional factors like:

• Long-tail keywords with lower competition
• Search volume in the triple digits or above (set a minimum you can work with)
• Search intent phrases like “best” or “cheapest” or “how to”

With a target audience and some solid SEO research in place, establishing a content calendar becomes an easy process. 

Establish a content calendar

When will you publish each piece of content you create? Consistency is a big part of getting your SEO content to rank. The more consistent you are with publishing high-quality content the better your chances of ranking. 

A lot on your content calendar will be determined by how much output you’re able to handle a month without sacrificing quality. According to HubSpot, small blogs should aim to publish anywhere from 3-to 4 posts a month. As your brand gets bigger, opt for multiple times a week if possible. 

However, these aren’t rules set in stone. At the beginning of your content journey, it might take some experimenting to see what works best for your content and your niche. 

Create and optimize your content

Now it’s time to create and optimize your content! As you create your content, think about adding the following elements for more effective search optimization: 

• Including internal links
• Encouraging link building and social shares
• Creating meta descriptions with keywords
• Inserting headings and subheadings
• Crafting title tags
• Adding alt text to all images
• Naturally including your main keywords throughout your content
• Adding a strong CTA
• Formatting your content for readability

Track your progress and course correct 

Using tools like Google Analytics to track your progress is a great way to keep a finger on your metrics. Is the content you created six months ago making any progress? Are you getting traffic from social platforms and direct sessions? 

As you track your SEO progress, it makes it easier to course correct. Once you see something isn’t quite working, change up your strategy and test for better long-term results. 

How to use AI for creating SEO content

The good news is that you can leverage AI for marketing and cut the time you spend on SEO content writing in half. With Jasper’s templates, there are several ways to create SEO content from scratch.

Once you have your target keywords, all you have to do is insert them in the keyword section and Jasper gets to work inserting them in the writing it generates naturally. It’s that easy. 

Whether you’re a marketer looking to start a new online project powered by SEO or you’ve been creating content and need a faster and more reliable way to create it, Jasper is the go-to tool no matter the subject or length of content you need. It’s solid at using AI to create both long and short-form content. 

Jasper in Action: SEO blog post created with Jasper

Let’s try a real-life example. Say, you’re a cat connoisseur and you want to write an ultimate guide on the best cat litter on the market depending on the needs of your cat. You’ve found your keywords. They are:

• Best cat litter for odour control
• Cat litter brands
• Best cat litter

Now it’s only a matter of plugging in each keyword, a title, a brief description, your tone of voice, and finally your preferred language to watch Jasper do the rest. Here are the results: 

Rank higher in SERPs with the help of AI

To stay ahead of the competition, businesses need to use all of the tools at their disposal. By leveraging AI-assisted content generation, businesses can create high-quality, engaging content quickly and easily. 

If you’re a marketer or content creator looking for more ways to optimize your website and increase your search ranking, be sure to check out our free Jasper community to connect with like-minded people.

And if you're looking to get a little more technical, try using our FAQ schema markup generator.

Are you ready to get started? Try out Jasper for free here.